Brand Licensing Europe will debut a ‘Beyond the Book’ Publishing Activation at this year’s event, which takes place 1-3 October at ExCeL London.

Celebrating publishing’s role within the licensing industry and showcasing success stories that have originated as publishing IP over the years, Beyond the Book will showcase an exciting collection of licensed products from BLE exhibitors, including Copyrights, Gallimard Jeunesse, Casterman, Penguin Ventures, Walker Books, Sanrio, Rocket Licensing, Tara Duncan and Metrostar.

The activation will also play host to a range of very special events, including daily author ‘meet and greets’ and signing opportunities. Nielsen Book has been confirmed as the activation’s official partner and will lead a publishing session in the BLE Licensing Academy during the show.

Sitting alongside ‘Beyond the Book’ is the all new Publishing Pavilion, which will offer entry-level pricing to start-ups and smaller brands to help shine a light on innovative, new properties breaking into the sector.

“Publishing has played an integral role in the licensing industry since day one – it’s thought that Beatrix Potter was the first ever licensor back in the 1930s when she brought out a Peter Rabbit plush,” said BLE event director Anna Knight.

“According to our partner, Nielsen Book, 190 million print books were sold in the UK in 2018 and the market was valued at £1.6bn, accounting for 71 percent of all UK book purchases. Children’s print books equate to 20 percent of that. As a licensing category, it’s also incredibly strong, accounting for seven percent ($18,437 billion)* of global licensing retail sales by property type in 2017, which is an increase of 5.3 percent. It’s a source of super rich content and brand owners are continuously injecting new ideas, IP, characters and storylines into the pipeline for licensees and retailers to work with.”

Hazel Kenyon, research director at Nielsen Book, added: "Nielsen Book is delighted to be a knowledge partner of BLE in 2019. Our expertise in analysis of consumer book purchasing places us in a unique position to be able to provide insightful data about books around the world. We look forward to providing a baseline - and perhaps surprising! - stats on children's book brands as well as the leading names in adult non-fiction.”

Brand Licensing Europe takes place 1-3 October 2019 at ExCeL London.